UCT seeds and other goodies

The Union County Tournament seeds were released tonight and, as expected, Governor Livingston is #1.

The undefeated Highlanders have been to the final the last two seasons, falling 1-0 each time. Defending champ Cranford, which GL has already beaten this year, is seeded eighth. Westfield, which is also enjoying a nice season at 7-1, is the No. 2 seed, with Scotch Plains-Fanwood (6-2) is third.

The fourth seed is Elizabeth. And that's a bit of a head-scratcher.

The Minutemen are 5-1, losing to Westfield on Tuesday -- by 11 runs. But who has Elizabeth beaten?
East Side? Irvington? Shabazz? Not exactly bastions of competitiveness on the softball landscape.

New Providence (6-0) got the fourth seed; Union Catholic (5-4) is ninth; Plainfield (2-5) is 18th.

Here are the seeds, followed by the matchups:

1 Governor Livingston
2. Westfield
3. Scotch Plains-Fanwood
4. Elizabeth
5. New Providence
6. Linden
7. Union
8. Cranford.
9. Union Catholic
10. Roselle Park
11. A.L. Johnson
12. Roselle Catholic
13. Brearley
14. Mother Seton
15. Dayton
16. Kent Place
17. Oak Knoll
18. Plainfield
19. Rahway


Preliminary round games must be completed by Wednesday, with the first full round of action scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. at the higher seeded school.

Preliminary and first-round matchups are:
17-Oak Knoll at 16-Kent Place, winner at 1-Governor Livingston
18-Plainfield at 15-Dayton, winner at 2-Westfield
19-Rahway at 14-Mother Seton, winner at 3-Scotch Plains-Fanwood
13-Brearley at 4-Elizabeth
12-Roselle Catholic at 5-New Providence
11-A.L. Johnson at 6-Linden
10-Roselle Park at 7-Union
9-Union Catholic at 8-Cranford

Quarterfinals are scheduled for May 5 at the higher seeded team, with the semifinals at 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. on Friday, May 11 and the final at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 12. The final two rounds will be held at Memorial Field in Linden.

With right-hander Capri Catalano and an improved offense, Governor Livingston is the overwhelming favorites. A Westfield vs. Scotch Plains-Fanwood semifinal is a near-guarantee, especially with the only other formidable team, Cranford, on the other side of the bracket.

New Providence should beat Elizabeth in the quarterfinals, but look for the Pioneers to go down convincingly to GL in the semis.

***

Couple of other notes:

* The Hunterdon-Warren Tournament seeds should be announced Thursday, with the first full round of action taking place Saturday. Look for a preview of that tournament here, later in the week.
Expect defending champ North Hunterdon to get the top seed, but it will be interesting to see where Hunterdon Central is seeded. The Red Devils, which failed to win its annual tournament Saturday for just the second time in its existence, fell again Monday, 4-3 to Montgomery. The Red Devils are now 6-5.
I would expect Delaware Valley (8-2) to get the No. 2 seed

** I will take a look at Bridgewater-Raritan's run at a Delaware East title in Wednesday's notebook, available in the online and print editions of the Courier News.
The Panthers are on a roll, having followed up its win earlier this season over Hillsborough by beating North Hunterdon on Friday. B-R then swept Hackettstown and Union on Saturday to win the Union Tournament.
Right-hander Lauren Fitzsimmons is on fire for the Panthers, as she's followed up her perfect game against Ridge on Thursday.
The junior is definitely in the running for Player of the Year, while the job Sandy Baranowski is doing with that squad definitely has her as a front-runner for top coaching honors.
If you are craving some great softball action Tuesday, check out Bridgewater-Raritan vs. Montgomery at 3:45 p.m. at North Bridge Street Park in a prime Skyland Conference matchup. This is the next major test for Bridgewater-Raritan, which will face Immaculata on Saturday.

***Also in the notebook Wednesday, find out which player is in this week's softball varsity spotlight, as well as see how the new Top 10 will look once the dust settles on what has been a wacky week on the local softball scene with multiple losses by two of our top three squads (North Hunterdon and South Plainfield).

**** The third installment of the weekly baseball/softball podcast, "Bats and Balls," is scheduled to be recorded Tuesday afternoon. Note I wrote "scheduled to be recorded." Last week's podcast was delayed a couple of days because of Courier News staffing shortages caused by our coverage of the flooding. Hopefully Harry Frezza, Jerry Carino and I will be get it done Tuesday and have it up on the Courier News Web site by Wednesday morning.
For those of you who have listened to our previous transmissions, you know we've gotten into the curious habit of singing a few bars of a song with prominent lyrics to start each podcast (John Foggerty's "Centerfield" Week 1, and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Who'll Stop the Rain" last week. I am soliciting requests and suggestions for songs with which we should open this, as well as future podcasts.
Chime in with yours by leaving a comment here.
This, as well as the previous two podcasts, can be accessed at http://www.c-n.com/specialsections/multimedia/index.htm